Sticker Club packs 8 tracks into 18 minutes, all that you can cram onto one of those cute 3inch cds. The music has a bedroom quality; the kind of music that 10 years ago would have been crafted via 4 track, operating in that vague world somewhere between indie pop and electronica. The second track in particular manages to sound somewhere between a lo fi Boards of Canada and Arab Strap, two bands that until this track never seemed particularly united. The tunes don’ seem overly developed, touching upon a mood and playing it out without putting in too many twists and turns. There’ a certain quirky quality to the tunes yet this is underscored with a strange sense of melancholy. And whilst the tunes are pretty simply constructed, basic beats, electric guitar or synthesizer, it all feels resolutely lo fi and thin, there’ no real body to the sounds suggesting that it may have been constructed via soft synths or some kind of groovebox. And this is precisely the charm, it’s about the ideas and the emotion, there’ a haphazard cheekiness that would be impossible to achieve if it was endless laboured over. As an aside it’s unexpectedly been released on No ground-r, an excellent label that has previously characterized itself via some gorgeous ambient work.
Bob Baker Fish
